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February 21 Eugenics and AbortionEugenics or "good genes" refers to selective breeding techniques designed to "improve the race." Usually this meant aborting babies and sterilizing people so they can't pass on their problems to children. But on the lighter side it also included birth control--however, this was birth control for the sake of social evolution (which we'll get to later). Today, eugenics is a dirty word. And rightfully so. It paints over so much inhumanity, racism, genocide, with a thin excuse of "bettering the world." Eugenics conjures images of Nazi Germany sterilizing the handicapped, of Gattaca where "inferiors" are not allowed to live, and of sterilized imbeciles in insane asylums. But little do Americans know that it was U.S. social policies which Hitler claimed as inspiration for his eugenics legislation in WWII. How could such an aweful practice sprout on American turf?
The seedbed of ideas is not hard to find. The eugenics policies that were passed in America were in the 1920's and 30's and they were not repealled until "eugenics" became passe after Hitler's exploits gave it a bad name. In the 1860's the bookshelfs bowed under the heavy social weight of the newly release Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin. But to be more technical, the title is: On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Here Darwin put forward the idea of competing animals vying for limited resources and ultimate survival in a world that is "red in tooth and claw." This natural selection idea was not all that new, but it was clearly presented and abundantly illustrated in Darwin's book. But built into Darwin's argument was a population scare forecasted by Thomas Malthus in his famous (but seriously flawed) Principle of Population. Written a few decades earlier, Malthus argued that human populations grow by multiplication while the food resources grow additively and so, he predicted, we would all run out of food within a few generations. By this logic, Human survival is a zero-sum game where we will have to restrict our growing population or "return to nature" killing each other to keep ourselves alive. Humans are just more animals subject to the cold logic of natural selection.
Meanwhile, religious conversative influence in the universities was starting to wane around the start of the 20th century as well, as historically Christian schools like Brown, Yale, Harvard and Princeton were caving in to German rationalism (with its brutal skepticism), higher criticism (which questioned the historicity and truth of the Bible), and theological liberalism (which dismissed much of orthodoxy and historic Christian ethics). Ideas like the sacredness of life and the "imago dei" were being reinterpreted naturalistically or abandoned altogether. The university then had little power to fight the tide of evolutionary appeal. Naturally, with such ideas leading the way, social darwinism rode into town in royal cavalcade. By the turn of the century social evolution was swirling aboutin educated circles and into popular conversation. By the 1920's and 30's court cases and legislation were appearing which pushed for sterilization of imbeciles, poor people, minorities and all sorts of "defectives" as they were called. In less than 20 years, estimates indicate about 600,000 people were sterilized, many of whom thought they were getting some kind of flu shot. Of course, when Hitler took the eugenics experiment into the public limelight and coldly applied its brutal logic the term became passe and most overtly eugenics-oriented legislation was repealed.
However, America has not recovered from its eugenics experiment of the 1920-30's. We have just transferred the emphasis to abortion and translated the lingo into the language of "women's rights" (though the early women's lib movement carried the 'right to life' cause alongside the suffrage issue), and "choice" (though dead babies have no choice, and the vast majority of pregnancies already involved the choice of consensual sex).
True to form, abortion on demand has preyed overwhelmingly on minority and impoverished populations--serving the same purposes for which eugenics and social evolution were drawn. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, herself saw the Aryan race as the most advanced race and in her "Negro Project" she targeted black ministers as cultural support in her cause saying, "The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members" (quoted in, Michael K. Flaterly, "White Lie" The American Spectator Aug. 1992). At the time she had both sterilization and birth control in mind because abortion was not yet legal. Now all three are legal, and all that has been lost is the popular acceptance of terms like "eugenics" and "social evolution." Sanger's cause was hardly slowed even when social evolution was scandalized by the cold logic of the Holocaust and and Hitler's "Final Solution." We cannot estimate how many people were preempted by the 600,000 (estimated) sterilizations in American eugenics legislation in the 1920's and 30's. But we do know that since Roe versus Wade legalized abortion in 1973 in America, in just 35 years America has seen 49,000,000 legal abortions.
This year America is slated to pass the 50,000,000 mark for legal abortions.
-That is almost as much as the populations of California and New York combined. Or about 2x the population of Texas.
-That is more than the populations of either South Africa or South Korea.
-That is about 6 million more than Stalin killed during his communist regime in Russia.
-That is about 4.5 x's as many as Hitler ever killed in Nazi Germany
-That is more than 100 x's as many as Mussolini killed in Fascist Italy.
-That is 50 x's more than the total number of American's who have died in combat throughout U.S. History.
-That is 12 million more than all the deaths in combat in all the wars in all the world during the entire 20th century.
Abortion is an arm of eugenics, and, if you listen closely to the arguments used today to support it you can hear the same logic of social evolution. I pray that God has mercy on our country and intervenes to stop this genocide. We dare not cannibalize our kids for mere comfort any longer and presume to ask God's favor or blessing on our country. Lord save us from ourselves. Let the terror stop.
If you are considering or know someone who is considering an abortion, please do not be another statistic in that 50 million. That is a record you don't want to be a part of. There are other options. Thoughts on doubtDoubt can be a scary place. In a turning and transient world, when time flies too fast for our memory to follow, and our business is busyness, change seems to be the only constant. We cope by finding bits of solid ground to stand on. We survive by forging little nooks of security, places where we feel safe, where boring is good, and dependability is golden. We need bastions of protection just to get by. Sure we don't mind the swirling dervish of life sometimes, but we need breaks between the rides. We all need solid ground to stand on. Doubt can be like that whirling ride, or it can be a diminished spot of ground beneath us. If doubt overtakes us, we either cannot get off the ride anymore, or we step off it into emptiness.
But lets be honest. Everyone doubts. Doubt is like taxes, its obligatory. Sure, we wouldn't want to doubt ourselves into an asylum somewhere, but we also wouldn't want to be a naive gullible, a comparative bunny rabbit in this predatory world. How then can we harness our doubts and force them into submission to truth? Well, we first should consider what we're dealing with.
Three kinds of doubt stand out to me (this is borrowed from Dr. Gary Habermas who first clarified these categories for me).
1) Intellectual Doubt--this is the reasoned and thoughtful kind of doubt where questions are raised about some proposed belief and unless answers come we suspend belief. Scientific, philosophical, theological or what have you--intellectual doubt is the "thinking mans" mode of doubt.
2) Emotional Doubt--this is the emotionally based doubt where, regardless of intellectual objections, the locus of doubt is some hurt, anger, fear, or otherwise emotional distrust. In my estimation, the vast majority of skeptics, free-thinkers and disbelievers have emotional doubt lurking beneath their intellectual questions.
3) Volitional Doubt--this is the willful and deliberate doubt, which may have originally sprung from emotional hurt or intellectual objections, but has since cooled and calcified into simple choice. This kind of doubt is the scariest because it cannot be assuaged or reasoned with. As such, it is emotionally and intellectually oblivious.
Intellectual doubt is my forte. It's relatively easy to address since the questioner is simply looking for answers to the question. Intellectual answers. Logical, scientific, theological, and philosophical problems can often find strong answers, if not conclusive answers so that intellectual doubt is resolved.
Emotional doubt is a bit trickier. The questions that arise are are often attempts to vent an emotional hurt, rather than seek an intellectual answer (for example, "There can't be a good God if he lets little babies die every day, right?"). The questions and doubts that are expressed sometimes don't even do that. Sometimes they just obscure and deflect us from seeing the emotional wound where the doubt really lurks. Here the intellectual questions can be answered without resolving much or any of the doubt. The intellectual questions are more of a smoke screen than a barrier. The real barrier is usually some kind of hurt. to address emotional doubt we have to address the hurt. A warm hug can sometimes do the trick. Usually though it takes some long-term loving friendship, earned trust, a patient ear, and gentle counsel. These needs are met existentially, not "rationally," so to speak.
Volitional doubt is even trickier. This kind of doubt might be exposed by first addressing the intellectual and emotional needs. When the person has no significant hurt or rational objection, he or she may still prefer to doubt and stay comfortable in their old lifestyle, their secret sin, their independence, their addiction, or what have you.
Somewhere between the last two kinds of doubt lurk the three main reasons for disbelief (that I can see at least).
Pride, fear and comfort.
Untold millions of people would rather reject faith in God than have to admit they were wrong, than cede to his authority, than step into the unknown, than leave their comfort zone. Rarely do I meet a person whose sole, or even main, reason for disbelief is a genuinely intellectual reason. Usually what happens with an "intellectual doubter" is after searching out his or her questions about God (or "the faith," or "the resurrection," or "the Bible") to the furthest end and seeing that strong reasons remain for believing God, they still don't want to believe or are still emotionally unable to believe. Resolving the intellectual doubts merely cleared away the smokescreen so that the real reasons for disbelief can be addressed.
so what is the moral of the story then? I suppose the simplest starting point is to admit that we don't always know ourselves as well as we think we do. Once admitting that we need courage enough to follow the truth wherever it leads. This is a willful commitment, a scary one at that. And following the truth is rarely a straight and narrow path. Then, lastly, we humbly pursue the truth.
to put this is brutally painful terms, consider the lonely maiden wanting a husband. There are millions of eligible women, good girls and would-be domestic goddesses/career women (take your pick) with a great work ethic, a gentle spirit, and undying faithfullness ready to be unleashed on a husband. The only problem is they have no good husband material available. For there millions of those women, there are about 12 good guys to choose from. So what do they do? They do what anyone desperate enough does, they settle. I'm not talking about realistic settling, I'm talking about pessimistic settling. I'm not saying they should hold out for prince charming, I'm saying they shouldn't marry the dragon. The truth is, and they know this, they should wait for a good respectable God-fearing and responsible man. However emotional doubt can be very strong ("Being an old maid is the worst thing ever!; No man will ever love me") and it can be well hidden by intellectual doubts ("All the good guys seem to be gay or taken; I really don't have a 'right' or 'deserve' anything better than this?; Hardly anyone 'holds' out for their Mr. Right anymore."). Reasoning with such women does little good. The locus of doubt is emotional, but if not treated it hardens into intellectual and volitional doubt.
I know I already "concluded" but perhaps some clarification would help to apply this insight.
1) Treat the doubt according to its kind--intellectual for the intellectual, emotional for the emotional, and persistent prayer for the volitional doubt.
2) Use your doubt--don't run from it, explain it away, or pretend its not real. It need not master you. Rather let it be the insightful question that helps your further along to better answers.
3) Known what you know, and doubt your doubts--if you find that doubt is getting the best of you, remember what you do know. And don't let anyone talk you into unreasonable, baseless, and illicit doubts. In the mean time, question your very questions. Some questions are uncalled for, and you don't have to let them trouble you. Why question whether truth exists? Do you really believe that you can't trust your senses AT ALL? Why question your own existence? If you have no real intellectual reason to doubt your wife's faithfulness, then why worry about it?
4) Emotions are a better follower than leader--when you find that your doubts are more emotional than anything else, treat it with the caution and care you should use with any emotion. Don't let emotion take you on a roller coaster ride. You have great authority over your emotions so don't believe the lie that you have to "follow your heart," or "if I feel it, it must be true." If you can let your emotions inform you but not guide you then you'll find that emotions are a great and helpful support as you pursue truth.
5) Let your intellectual doubts correct your faith--be a life-long learner, ask sensible and responsible questions to correct your faith. When you have good reasons, and the pros outweigh the cons, then you can start extending some faith in that direction, reasonable faith. If you wait for absolute certainty you'll be waiting a while. But if you hold out for high probability, or a good defensible position, then you can start building a worldview and a life.
Doubt can be good. Truth is out there and you can know it, so let your doubts be just another avenue to it. May 25 Beyond and Below Human: An Essay on Nuclear ArmamentBeyond and Below Human Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov thinks he is above "good and evil." Such peasant ideals, he thinks, apply to a lesser class of men, to those servile subjects of natural law. Morality, social responsibility, and individual duty--these are all leftover ghosts from a deceased superstitious morality. They have long left the corpse of some dead church or government. Feodore Dostoevsky in his epic Crime and Punishment casts this grim antihero as a forerunner for some growing philosophies of his day (C&P, 3rd ed., George Gibian, Ed., New York: Norton, 1989). Raskolnikov attempts the superhuman, or shall we say inhuman, act of transcending conventional morality with a deliberate act of murder. In typical fashion, as taken from the pages of Greek tragedy, the harder he runs the less he escapes himself. Raskolnikov, in trying to be a God becomes a demon instead. And so goes the barbarism of men whose arms exceed their heart, or, if we may retranslate, whose technological ability exceeds their moral sensitivity. Philosophers may recognize bits of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy in the terms "superhuman," or "above good and evil." Those educated elite can revel in that privileged pleasure. What may elude even them however is that Raskolnikov is not merely a thought experiment to challenge Nietzsche, this rascal of a character is no more than the logical outworking of secular humanism. Few scholars took the idea of non-religious mortality to the grave extremes that Nietzsche did, but where else could such logical outworkings lead? As Dostoevsky shows, the deification of man as the supreme value makes devils out of mortals. This character is every society that attempts to make "might" its "right." He is every person who says that, "Morality is relative." He is each individual who realized that convention, in itself, is just a majority vote, no more "good" than any other popular evil. He is everyone who let his ability determine his morality. Technology is one of those abilities which becomes monstrous unless informed with a humble human soul. Technology can be angelic or demonic, but at base, it is at least a powerful beast. If that beast is to be humane, it must draw its breath from the same source Adam did, from God himself. Nuclear power is one big bicep on that beast of human technology. We may hope that nuclear production will recede to obscurity and that human will would incline to angelic purity. Or we may hope that nuclear powers are redirected to positive purposes such as dissolving hurricanes or destroying incoming meteorites. However such powerful beasts rarely play nicer than they have to. Technology can be no more grand than its master is good. Nuclear powered neighbors will continue to mount their arsenals and brandy about their boom sticks as long as power and fear inspire them. At the risk of oversimplying, let us say that fear and power are the main motivators for nuclear proliferation. Setting aside obviously constructive uses for nuclear energy such as nuclear power plants, fear and power are the chief impetus for man's fascination with nuclear power. Would it not follow then that people dominated instead by altruism, courage and wisdom, would stand against aggressive uses of nuclear force? Sure, we are painting here with a broad brush whereas wisdom distinguishes bristles. But we can at least admit that no matter what kind or amount of nuclear weapons there are in the world, if men were angels we would be in no danger. What then should be done to stop nuclear proliferation? People must first address the war in their own souls. Our public victories at peace and charity are but natural extensions of a longer harder victory in private. It is easy to talk about morality in the abstract and talk about war and violence in the public domain but we squirm when forced to look at our own finger prints on the gun. War rages in the world because it rages in each us. Like Raskalnikov we are deeply conflicted people because we each add evil to the world yet still we want to think of ourselves as justified and good. But if we try to make our own morality in the process, as if Gods ourselves, we may become the devils--whether we gallantly stride into evil as Raskolnikov did or we subtly slip there as unwitting relativists, the destination is the same. There we are driven more by base instincts like lust, fear, power, and greed since the higher, harder virtues are thereby less accessible. So each of us must admit our part in feeding this deadly nuclear culture with our contributions of arrogance, ethnocentrism, foolishness, racism, egoism, and isolationism. Second men must apply the peace in their own souls to their piece of the world. Again, I speak vaguely, but I mean simply that it is not enough for people to wish good things and do good things in private, there is need for a public practice of peace. The chief virtue in this task is humility. How revolutionary would it be if the G8 summit began first with a time of repentance among each of the world leaders, confessing the evils of their country and themselves? How radical a shift would we see in world politics if the united nations opened its yearly sessions with the giving of gifts--a new gift to a different randomly selected nation each year? True these examples might be little more than roses on a coffin, a dying gift for an already dead cause--but only creativity prevents us from finding other live expressions of peace that might make a difference. Third, of course, no amount of policy or institutionalism will make men good, so there is need for individual peacemakers--master diplomats--who will put their very lives in the balance between feuding people groups lobbying, pleading, traveling, giving, and sacrificing themselves to muster bits of peace between nuclear enemies. These are an elitely qualified group and they will more likely come from the pools of natural law and the fear of God than from the oceans of moral relativism. Fourth, and I say this gravely, righteous nations must earn a noble reputation on the world stage as both good and strong, retaining the strongest of nuclear weapons to defend decency itself. I see no other option in this natural world. Goodness must be enforced because it is anything but natural. It is a Platonic pipe dream to think that mankind will be good just because he has been taught the good, has observed the good, and knows everything about the good. Were man basically good and selfless then communism would be one of the crowning achievements of human invention. But, as it happens, communism has proved to be one of the most deadly miscalculations man has imagined. And so we have the great plague latent in secular humanism. If man is believed to be basically good and is likewise esteemed as the highest value then what prevents him from becoming a law to himself? What prevents him from renaming evil "good?" Once man is a law to himself, his invented "good" eventually proves his own wickedness. The book does not end in despair, and neither should our world story. Like Raskolnikov at the close of the book, we too may find redemption, but not without the humility that leads to repentance, and both of these leading to a wise and loving defense of goodness in an all-too-evil world. February 03 ItalyTripNaples Italy, the birthplace of Pizza, played host to a team of students and alumni from Southern Evangelical Seminary. This team of teachers, conveniently called T.E.A.M. exists for the purpose of Tactical Evangelism and Apologetics Mission. A brethren Church in Bacoli (a district in Naples Italy), pastored by Rod Jones played host to this motley crew of 7 apologists. November 08 Redeeming Reason ConferenceHello one and all. I come again before you with eagerness in my heart and a predisposition for excessive abundant redundance. . . .
This weekend I will be at a conference at University of Chicago called:
REDEEMING REASON
Nov. 9-11th
I'm getting the chance to present a paper called: "Christian Freedom and Academic Calling"
Below is the abstract from that paper. If you are interested in more just message me with your email address and I can send it to you. God bless.
July 22 Conference ResultsI just finished two presentations at the: No Other Gods Conference in Middletwon, PA. If anyone wants the lecture notes or would like to talk about these issues feel free to message me with a link to your email I can send it through to you. I presented on the following Topics:
DO ALL ROADS LEAD TO MT. CARMEL? An Evangelical Study of the Baha'i Faith.
And
Hell Yes or Hell No? A Defense of the Literal View of Hell.
Advice to a Teen Interested in WiccaFew Christians are strong enough to play that close to the waters edge without falling in. It sounds more like you are fascinated with wiccan spirituality and want to dabble in it, rather than you as a strong Christian are finding means of insiteful evangelistic entry into their world. June 30 I love this book!It took me about 4 years but I finally pulled How Now Shall We Live? down from my bookshelf and started reading it. I can't believe I took this long to read it. Below is a paragraph from the book proving that it is the best book ever written by anyone anywhere (except the Bible).
*Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton,IL:Tyndale,1999), xii. June 18 A Reasoned Argument On Homosexuality IIntroduction
"Bigot!" "Homophobe!" "Fag!" "Queer!" "Gay-basher" The subject of homosexuality is a highly charged issue with live fire coming from both sides of the line. Name calling and personal attacks are not uncommon. And due to the nature of this subject, discussions can get heated quickly. Before we advance into the larger discussion of whether homosexuality is right we should lay some ground rules first so that this discussion stays productive and does not reduce to mere fighting and name calling. First, let us celebrate where we do agree however slim those agreements may be. Second, let us mutually agree to submit to truth wherever that may lead us. We will likely find fault and favor on both sides. Let us start with humility to admit where we are wrong and to submit to what is right. If we journey together towards truth then the common goal may compel us to be common allies. Third, let us stick to the issues. This discussion can easily get off track and become a train wreck if we settle for ad hominem arguments (attacking the person) and red herrings (side-stepping the issue). Fourth, let us try, as much as possible, to dissociate ourselves. While we do not argue in a vacuum and we often find ourselves emotionally attached to issues we find important, we should make every effort not to take these kinds of disagreements personally. Nor should we present our arguments as personal attacks since this, at the time being, is meant to be a discussion of issues not combat with persons. We should store up character and composure and a great deal of humility so that we can accept truth even when it hurts, and defend it well even when we'd rather just throw stones. Remember that being right is no reason for being rude. Now we may continue.
Vested Interests
With homosexuality we are dealing with two of the most pressing human issues: sex and marriage. From a Christian standpoint sex and marriage are God- ordained and are foundational to the institution of family. Family, in turn, it may be said, is the foundation for society. Of course singles also can constitute a population, but it is the institution of family that serves as the fundamental training ground for citizens wherein young children are to grow into upstanding citizens through moral, physical, and mental training. The government, seeking the health and preservation of order in society, has a vested interest in the health of its individuals and its families. Needless to say, the church also has a vested interest in the health of individuals and families. With the government, society, and church all having a great interest in the health and functioning of the family, it follows logically that they would all have a vested interest in the idea and practice of sex and marriage, and in particular the romantic orientation of homosexuality as it bears upon all of the above.
Qualifications to the Debate
First, no man is an island. Privacy rights, while valuable and cherished, are not God. Autonomy is the deity of humanism, but a sensible look at autonomy shows that absolute autonomy is impractical to the point of being unlivable. There cannot be even two people with absolute freedom for they would inevitably infringe on each other's freedoms. Much less could there be a whole society or world of absolutely autonomous people. Personal freedoms have their limits. The heterosexual union has manifested a breeding ground for some serious errors and consequences in today's society. Those parties must own up to their mistakes. Likewise though, if the homosexual union has also hurt society, individuals and families, then it should rightfully own up to it’s errors as well. Where certain sexual practices or belief, of whatever orientation, prove socially detrimental those persons should own up to the burden of responsibility. Remember, in most fights both parties are likely at fault in some form or another. This point about autonomy is important to setting the stage for the argument to follow. Without it understanding autonomy correctly, the issues of "rights" and "freedoms" may swell up beyond their boundaries and presume to be all-purpose trump cards superior to all else be it health, life, happiness, survival, safety, love or faith. Second, full diffusion of responsibility is not an option. Simply put, everyone contributes something to society whether that is a negative or positive contribution. And where society is inundated in a flood, it is said, "No raindrop thinks it is to blame for the flood." America is steeped in social problems, and family problems in particular, be it violence, divorce, deviation, or whatever the case may be. No category of sexual orientation is free from blame. Hetero-, homo-, bi-, transgender, even celibacy all have associations with certain social corruptions. And the practitioners therein have, as stated before, a responsibility to own up to their own personal influence, however small it may be, on society. The American family is in rough shape as it is. She can use as much help as she can get.
State Interests In the Debate
Supporting Traditional Marriage
The state has a vested interest in preserving traditional marriage. According to recent research the following points can be extrapolated (see Frank Turek, Legislating Morality; Michael Craven, Thinking Critically Acting Compassionately; and Norman Geisler, Christian Ethics).
A) Traditional marriages improves health, lengthens life and commits men (lets be honest, men show a "predatory" nature when they are allowed to roam wild even if that hunter mentality isn't violent). On average, men in traditional marriages live to be 75 years old with 80% living past the age of 65. Single or divorced straight men lived to be 57 with 32% passing 65. Homosexual men without aids and having a long-term sexual partner lived to 42 years of age. Without a long-term sexual partner, 42 years of age. And only 7-9% lived past 65 years of age respectively. These numbers are sourced in obituaries drawn from publications within the gay communities and were reported in "The Longevity of Homosexuals: Before and After the AIDS epidemic," Omega Journal of Death And Dying , 29:3 (1994): 249-272.
B) Traditional marriage domesticates men and protects women serving to provide for the cultivation of children. This thought helps to explain the previous point. Sociologically speaking, women are far more often the victims of rape in free society (prison excluded) than are men. And the magazine aisle at your local grocer bears witness to the fact that the male sex drive is a large part of what fuels the engine of our capitalist economy. Pornography in its various forms is heavily stilted towards a male readership because men are more willing to give their patronage than are women. Money talks. The advertising industry would market more to women if women had the same driving kind of sexuality that men do. Considered together, these kinds of social evidences serve the reminder of what is often believed but rarely admitted, namely, that traditional marriage provides an environment for men to be domesticated honing in their drives and desires to be more socially productive even offering protection and security for their respective wives. And consequently, because it is marriage and not just a "partnership" there is legal binding to keep the family together thus, potentially, providing a more stable environment and more social support in raising children. Some may call it, "being whooped." Traditionally it is called "settling down." But socially speaking, there is a recognized phenomenon when men and women choose to be married. Traditional marriage is a sort of social maturity for when men are ready to accept the kind of self-discipline that it takes to be a good husband and father. Consequently the wife has more protection (all else being equal) and children have a better chance of social health and advancement given a stable father and a secure mother. Can women be protected and men be domesticated and children cultivated all outside of traditional marriage? Perhaps in theory. But even providing the poor success rate of heterosexual marriages, the phenomenon has yet to be trumped by a viable counterpart among homosexual relationships. If it is believed that homosexual relationships could serve at least as well in that respect as traditional marriage, one should provide reasons for that belief. But to my knowledge, no such counter-example has yet been demonstrated as viable on large scale. And given the capitalistic differences of men and women mentioned above, there is reason to believe that homosexual relationships do not provide the kind of complementarity that traditional marriage provides.
C) Traditional marriage is the immune system of our country. Like most immune systems, this institution is not perfect in achieving its task but the hope of restoring a fallen society is always at least one generation away, provided the traditional family is maintained.
D) Traditional marriages have shown to lower welfare cost–compared to the higher incidence of STD's among homosexuals. The higher incidence of STD's is largely due to the physiological fact that "the parts don't fit" and therefore there is more blood transference occurring with gay intercourse than with straight. Consequently, the incidents of STD's and concurrent terminal illnesses, result in more leaves of absence from work, joblessness, and greater medical bills. When those medical bills are covered under the insurance policy of one's employee benefits or through welfare, they prove taxing on others (be it fellow workers or society as a whole). Of course, heterosexual behavior is not free from personal risk and according medical costs. But, as demonstrated in point one, the life span of homosexual males is significantly lower than their heterosexual counterparts suggesting that the lifestyle itself poses serious medical risks. Conversely, traditionally married couples are more likely to maintain a steady income (they have to if they have kids to feed) and are more likely to live longer with a lower incidence of STD's.
* Some would also argue, though I am not prepared to do so here, that homosexuality has a higher incidence of psychopathology even if we disregard the previous categorization of homosexuality as "sexual pathology (DSM III). Therefore, it is argued, that traditional marriage is protective of children and others in that it preserves a healthier mental disposition in individuals. To support these arguments crime reports on pedophilia, rape, and violent crimes are used to establish a correlation between homosexuality and said crimes. I however have not seen or studied these reports and therefore am not prepared to defend so bold an assertion. I therefore leave it hanging, undefended.
Rejecting Gay Marriage
Supporting traditional marriage does not automatically mean a negative attitude towards gay marriage. One would first have to show that those two orientations are mutually exclusive positions. Rather than argue for that larger claim, I simply intend to show here that the state has significant reasons to support traditional marriage and oppose gay marriage. As shown below, the state has strong reasons for rejecting gay marriage.
E) In Norway where homosexual marriage is allowed illegitimacy runs as high as 70%. Of course, Norway has a whole slew of other factors to consider. But the fact of such high illegitimacy in Norway is hardly a defense for gay marriage (see Stanley Kurtz, The End of Marriage in Scandinavia ).
G) As demonstrated in Canada, governmentally protecting the right to homosexuality easily results in the loss of free speech (not to mention tax-exempt status) for individuals and groups inclined to disagree on the issue. Were disapproval of homosexuality merely intrusive and bigoted then such restrictions would be defensible. But since homosexuality is not the private issue which it is often touted to be, one would hope and expect those with a socially vested interest to be allowed to speak on that issue, at least as it affects them.
D) Already established social standards of marriage and sexuality loom over the precipice forged by the homosexuality debate. Logically, if homosexuality should be allowed because it is a personal choice between consenting adults then polygamy and incest should also be incorporated. If personal choice between people is the foundation then pedophilia should also be permitted. If personal choice alone is the foundation then bestiality and all other forms of invented sexuality could be incorporated as well. It is at least uncommon to hear the advocate for homosexual marriage, today, advertising their company with those advocating pedophilia, polygamy, and incest. Most if not all advocates for gay marriage would likely part company with such crowds to prevent being logically associated with them thus making their cause more objectionable to traditional society. However the logical connection between them is strong enough to merit a response.
E) Gay marriage always denies children the benefit of interacting with the combination of mother and father. It is naive to think that a man can be a mother just as much as any woman could. Men and women certainly choose much of how they will be engendered, but there are still psychological and physiological tendencies which are so common as to lend a substantial meaning to "masculine" and "feminine." Gay or straight, men are still men. And women are still women. No society has ever existed which views men and women as identical, even if they are equal in value and rights. Every society in history and in the world today has a category for "male" and a category for "female." This fact is what sociologists call a "cultural universal" since it is so universally admitted, regardless of culture, that it does not need to be proven. Therefore, whatever those different genders may provide, they are different in what they offer. Gay marriage deprives children of the cultivating type of exposure to both genders that promotes social health and well being. How should one act around women if the only women they've seen growing up are their day-care workers and magazine cover images? How should one act around men if their only exposure is with fictional TV characters or the neighbor who helps mow the lawn?
F) Gay marriage attempts to re-define rather than recognize the established nature of marriage. Before something as drastic and important as marriage is reoriented one should first prove that this change is for the greater good. In legal terminology, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff since the charge being raised is against an already established and previously recognized standard (traditional marriage). To think that an institution that has existed for thousands of years, if not millennia, can suddenly be rewritten without consequence or side effect would be counterintuitive. This point, of course, is not necessarily an "attack" on the position favoring gay marriage. What this point does argue however is simply, "Don't knock traditional marriage unless you can come up with something better." Traditional marriage has suffered its abuses, but it stands strong today with many procreative spouses who are socially and psychologically well adjusted. And it can be argued that the failings of traditional marriage are not innate to the institution per se but rather to the people who fail to practice it correctly. Conversely, those arguing for gay marriage have to show not only that the inadequacies of traditional marriage are so great as to warrant a reorientation towards marriage, but that homosexual marriage is not rife with the same problems or worse.
E) High insurance rates, higher taxes, and reduced employee benefits are natural byproducts from the fact that homosexual relations are inherently unhealthy (remember the physiological factors and the high mortality rate mentioned above). For more on this see Frank Turek, Legislating Morality.
F) To governmentally approve of gay marriage would logically follow in preferential treatment for gay couples in adoption since straight couples are normally advantaged with the ability to have kids. Preferred institutions should rightfully be treated with preference, but, for the reasons listed above, traditional marriage, it would seem provides a more stable environment for raising children.
A Reasoned Argument On Homosexuality II
Answering Objections to Traditional Marriage
At this point in the discussion it is common for certain objections to arise. Even if the previous points are granted, there likely remain several points to consider to be fair. The objections to traditional marriage however can be answered.
Objection 1: Gay Marriage Should be Allowed for the Sake of Equal rights
Equal rights do not equate to special rights. Equal rights refer to common rights held by all free persons, and most still apply to those who are incarcerated. These are rights flowing from our humanity. Examples include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But special rights refer to privileged rights that are somehow earned or bestowed indicating that person is somehow exempt and or special. Not everyone has those rights because they flow from special circumstances or exceptions. I cannot marry my dog or rightfully have sex with my sister just because I choose to define sex and marriage that way. To allow people to redefine sex and marriage in these cases, we would admit, is fallacious and would have to be considered a special right, not merely an "equal right." Homosexuality has not been touted as a normal or viable form of marriage within the history of America, and examples of it in history are few and far between. It is at least questionable whether those seeking to define homosexuality as a legitimate social lifestyle are asking for equal rights or in fact for special rights. People are not at liberty to reject standing definitions of other social institutions like public education. With all the problems in the public educational system, if parents cannot afford private school, they are not allowed to let their children skip school. Such a privilege would be a special right. The right to education is an equal right, extended to everyone. But to be able to skip school is a special right. Such people would have to demonstrate that they are exceptional to merit special rights, such as having a mortally ill child or one who is extremely gifted or extremely deficient. One is certainly entitled to argue that gay marriage is a special right that should be extended to people, but it should not be assumed that gay marriage is an equal right. Furthermore, government and society are not obligated to offer marriage as a right to just any couple. Pre-teens can love each other. Siblings and cousins can love each other. And more than two people can love each other. But not every romantic relationship "deserves" to call its union "marriage." Since many relationships exist which, it is admitted, should not be deemed by society as "marriage' it therefore becomes evident that marriage is a privilege requiring certain minimal qualifications and is not simply an "equal right." The argument for gay marriage must be stronger than "it is a loving couple."
Objection 2: It is Religious Bigotry Which Opposes Homosexuality
While it is true that much bigotry has been rooted in religious adherents, it is not true that religion per se is responsible for that particularly hateful and wicked manifestation. Moreover, it is not a uniquely "Christian" position to oppose homosexuality. The Baha'i Faith, Islam, and Judaism all teach against it yet they all possess core ethical values of love, and grace. It is not necessarily "religion" that opposes homosexuality so much as it is reality. The taboo on homosexuality, like incest, bestiality, murder, and even cowardice are moral and common social taboos regardless of whatever religion tends to dominate in a region. As an institution, the taboo on homosexual marriage is so common as to be a cultural universal. This is not to say that every society and religions disallows it, but merely that most societies and religions disallow it. When there is so much agreement on an issue one has a bigger challenge in arguing the other way.
Objection 3: Homosexuals are Just Asking for Tolerance
Tolerance does not equal endorsement. Tolerance is the present practice since gay persons are rightfully allowed to practice that lifestyle and have their own families. What is sought in the pursuit of legalizing gay marriage is not tolerance but endorsement. Tolerance means enduring differences and disagreements even if one believes that position to be wrong. Endorsement entails supporting something, implicitly meaning agreement with that thing. An advocate for homosexuality is certainly entitled to campaign for the endorsement of homosexuality and gay marriage, but the language of "tolerance" is misleading.
Objection 4: Can't a Gay Person Just Be Allowed to Be Gay
Orientation does not equal behavior. Wherever a person stands on the issue, it can be admitted that a persons orientation does not obligate their practice of that behavior. Being "straight" or "gay" does not obligate a person to be sexually active, even if one has strong beliefs and inclinations in those directions. No one is arguing here that a person should not be allowed to have a homosexual orientation, but society and its members do have a right to disapprove of homosexual practice if it proves to be socially detrimental.
Objection 5: This is the New Civil Rights Movement Discrimination applies more suitably to classes and races, which are not fully voluntary, not to behavior, which is voluntary. Many who have suffered genuine persecution for involuntary circumstances such as for being black have reason to object when a person cries "persecution" over a chosen behavior that happens to incur certain social consequences. Please do not think that I encourage "gay bashing" or any militant or non-militant hate crimes against homosexuality. Two wrongs do not make a right. And I would argue that homosexual practice and violent acts opposing them are both wrong. I mean simply to point out that the "persecution" card should be carefully played lest it make a false analogy between the gay community and, say, the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's. Furthermore, analogies with ethnicity in particular are limited because while there is only one race (the human race) whereas there are two genders.
Objection 6: I was born Gay
Not everything which is brought about by natural causes has the right to manifest itself openly in society. Being born gay, even if the science were mustered to support that idea, does not give automatic freedom to practice homosexuality. The same argument would not hold for people inclined to violence or kleptomania–"its natural so they should be allowed to practice it." Lest a person jump to the defense and say "homosexuality is between mutually consenting adults and doesn't hurt anyone else" I simply repeat what has been said above and add that homosexuality, even between consenting adults, sets a socially detrimental example and involves two people in a socially problematic practice preventing these people from contributing, at the same time, and in a parallel fashion, to the institution of traditional marriage Furthermore, it is only in regards to desire that homosexuality can be passed on genetically, if it can be passed on at all. But it is society which is to serve as the principle restraint on behavior. Therefore, society has a right to exercise restraints on behaviors which are socially detrimental.
Objection 7: This Is Personal Discrimination
To discriminate against a behavior does not equal discriminating against the person. True some close connections can be made, but no one is arguing here that people, gay or straight, should hate each other or act unkind to each other. All people are deserving of love and basic acceptance because they are people. And one need not endorse everything about someone to love and appreciate that person.
Objection 8: But We're Not Hurting Anyone
As has been shown above, the common argument that "we're not harming anyone" is faulty since it is a personally dangerous lifestyle with serious social and societal repercussions.
Objection 9: Societies in the Past Have Supported Homosexuality
The instances of societal support for gay practice in history such as in Greek, Roman, and English history do not outweigh the standing fact that there is not one example in history to defy the fact that the redefinition of marriage in a society forecasts the fall of that society.
Objection 10: For the Government to Support Traditional Marriage Fuses Church and State.
Since the contemporary church falls on both sides of this issue, it is useless to argue that the government is not allowed to favor traditional marriages since that would "fuse church and state." Many churches support gay marriage so the same "church and state" argument could be made if the government sided with those churches.
Objection 11: Targeting Homosexuality is a kind of Discrimination
It is hypocritical to recognize moral laws against discriminatory bigotry yet rebel against laws prohibiting certain gay practices. Moreover, not every discrimination is wrong, especially when public and personal health is at stake. Every time we discriminate between sitting at the table beside the healthy person and sitting with the person who is coughing and wheezing we are discriminating. Such discrimination is warranted. License to discriminate, in that sense, is still limited since we do not have the right to attack the coughing person or verbally harass them. But, there is valid reason to prefer to sit elsewhere. If we think about it, we can see that it is the duty of society to discriminate against socially detrimental behaviors. The argument therefore which needs to be made if gay marriage is going to stand is that it is good enough and safe enough to leave discrimination unwarranted.
Objection 12: But we love each other.
As Thomas Aquinas defines it, "Love seeks the ultimate good of another." How then can homosexuality, as a societal disposition and an individual practice, be called "love?"
Objections 13: What About the Exceptions, like Childless Traditional Marriages?
It is fallacious to legislate according to exceptions (such as the rarity of the "monogamous gay male union"). Some drunk drivers don't hurt anybody, but that does not mean society should approve of drunk driving. Non-procreative traditional marriage happens sometimes but no gay marriage procreates.
Objection 14: Traditional Marriage Has a host of problems Already.
The contemporary propensity for divorce shows many failings on modern views of sexuality, individuality, family and marriage entirely apart from homosexuality. But this vast weakening of marriage shows why it is so precious and fragile needing to be made safe again. Traditional marriage isn't the cause, for example, of disenfranchised kids per se rather it is the beliefs and practices which slipped in illicitly to undermine marital commitment, parental commitment, and social responsibility.
Objection 15: To Prevent Gay Marriage is an Assault on Individual Liberty.
Marriage is a restriction of rights. Therefore if one is trying to preserve his or her freedom of choice then any marriage would seem to be objectionable since it restricts rights, choice, and freedom.
Objection 16: Homosexual People Can Still Be Good Ethical People.
Immanuel Kant's universal ethic, applied here would leave society extinct. His ethic argues that if some is ethically good if it can be applied universally. If everyone were gay, society would die in one generation.
Conclusion
As you can see, my view is that traditional marriage, and therefore heterosexuality is socially preferable and is right. While I believe Christian Scripture strongly supports this view as well, I am confident that God has already spoken through human nature (and mother nature) long before Christian Scripture ever came to us. And one need not even appeal to God for holding this belief. I do invite feedback on this tricky topic. The last thing I want to do is come off as another pushy and bigoted traditionalist. I am a traditionalist because I love people, I believe in society, and I want what is best for everyone. I do not care to butt into people's business unnecessarily, but because I see many people asserting potentially dangerous doctrines it is my concern for society and people that pushes me to speak out even when the matter may seem to be a matter of "personal rights."
Much of the previous discussion is derived from lectures by Dr. Frank Turek author of Legislating Morality , Frank Turek, "Protecting America's Immune System: A Reasonable Case Against Gay Marriage" (Charlotte, NC: National Apologetics Conference, 11-12-05) and Michael Craven, "Defending Marriage" [Lecture] (Charlotte, NC: Southern Evangelical Seminary, 2-24-04). Also, for more information see
June 10 Four Front WarIn promoting the idea of "intelligent faith" (as a lifestyle, not as a title), I have come to see at least four fronts on which this battle must advance.
1) The intellectual Christians--that is, the persons of intelligent faith who are not just knowledgable, but who live out their faith in a way that dignifies and exercises the mind to its fullest. These people have a passion and conviction for learning even if they are just beginning their journey. These folks need help in discovering what does "intelligent faith" mean, how to keep their faith without sacrificing their mind, and how to apply their intelligent faith in a way that will encourage others to intelligent faith.
2) The non-intellectual Christians--These can be very difficult because of the overriding tendency within the church to demonize higher learning and to fear advanced study. I've dealt with these objections elsewhere and will not reiterate it here. But suffice it to say that a dumb faith is a vulnerable and, in many ways, immature faith. this category constitutes most of the church today. Without reaching this demographic the church will never mobilize, as a whole, effectively to support a Christian advance into the halls of higher learning.
3) The intellectual non-Christians--These are perhaps the hardest to evangelize, but our task is not simply to evangelize them. Where an intellectual non-Christian is willing to submit to Christian truth, praise God. But we must have a broader aim to influence them in such a way that the intellectual non-Christian will be more receptive, accepting, and even sympathetic to the intellectual Christian. These people are reached with the gospel the same as anyone else, they just tend to have more sophisticated objections. These persons are often professors, and writers, and influencers in some sort. They need to see what intelligent faith looks like so that they don't propogate the idea that Christianity is only for the weak minded.
4) Lastly there is the non-intellectual non-Christian--How, you say, do we reach this group if they are not necessarily sympathetic to Christianity and they are not intellectuals? And what difference does it make in our goal of Christian intellectualism? Of course God loves these people and desires for their salvation, but he has also given them souls to be redeemed minds to be exercised and until they have a saving faith, they will not be able to exercise their minds to their fullest nor to survive this life. They can reason just as well as a Christian, and they can see and understand things just as clearly as a Christian kind (all else being equal), but until they are Christian then their minds are not dignified by the fullest and best application of the truth of Christ in their lives. By forsaking the heart of truth Himself, their cognitive framework and worldview is therein limited and incomplete. The rest of their perspective and understanding is potentially affected by that deficit. This group is relevant to our task because every non-intellectual non-Christian is a potential Christian intellectual and because this, in regards to influence, makes up in numbers what it may lack in intellectual or religious influence. By the democracy of capitalism, this group determines much of what is going to be on tv, what will be in magazines, what will be considered newsworthy in tomorrow's newspaper, what will be published, etc. This group has a tremendous affect on what the culture will be for everyone in that culture, intellectual or Christian or otherwise. Some of these may never convert to Christianity, much less a Christian Intellectualism, but if they can see how Christian intellectualism is a good thing they may use their influence to affect positive change in favor of intelligent faith. June 05 More from Christian Critique of the University[Taken from chapter 1: The Place and Power of the University.]
"The university is one of the greatest creations of Western Civilization. There is the family, the church, the state, the economic enterprise, the professions, the media and the university. These seven institutions with all their living traditions and with all that they mean constitute the substance of Western civilization. And while in other civilizations there are families, religious institutions, [etc.] . . . the university, as universally recognized today, is more distinctive of Western civilization than of any other." (pg. 15).--In seeking to affect culture the Church can no more afford to neglect the university than it could neglect economics or the family or the church itself. Moreover, the western models of the university hold sway over world education and are key points of influence needing a Christian infusion.
"The university is nothing if it is not the home of free inquiry and unfettered curiosity." (pg. 16).--Bravo! Loose the chains that bind the mind and let us admit, once again, the reality of truth, and pursue it with a crazed passion.
"What you know, or think you know, that you cannot articulate in such a way as to share it with all mankind is not knowledge. It could be faith, it could be feeling, it could be intuition, it could be hallucination, it could be daydreaming, but it is not knowledge. It remains your private property until you manage to convert it into knowledge, namely, until you succeed in communicating it to others, indeed potentially to all mankind. Knowledge is essentially publishable and shareable with all men. Knowledge therefore is not the possession of this or that individual or culture alone; knowledge is never something esoteric; knowledge, as knowledge, is universally human or it is something fake." (pg. 17)--I'm not yet sure to what degree I agree with Malik here, but this is certainly a provocative idea about knowledge. And this line of thought raises a question about whether the bulk of contemporary education can be called "knowledge" since there is in contemporary academia the undercurrent of relativism and subjectivism which proposes to relegate all knowledge to the individual as a subjective impression. IE: We supposedly cannot not know reality but can only know our perspectives on it.
"Western civilization is defined by total fearlessness of and openness to the truth . . . . Nothing authentic is known or taught in Soviet universities about Christianity; whereas practically everything is known or taught in Western universities about communist doctrine and practice." (pg. 19).--Remembering that this book was prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and some of the comtemporary advancements of Russia, this statement still holds a great degree of truth even today.
"The Universities, then, directly and indirectly, dominate the world; their influence is so pervasive and total that whatever problem afflicts them is bound to have far-reaching repercussions throughout the entire fabric of Western Civilization. No task is more crucial and urgent today than to examine the state of th emind and spirit in the Western University" (pg. 20).--When it is understood high critical a role the university serves in regards to world evangelism, we can see that the university is hardly some "intellectual diversions." We are not talking about trivial preoccupations of the mind, but instead we are talking about how to influence one of the mega-engines of society which feeds determines much of contemporary ideology, perspective, belief, and worldview. There is perhaps no task greater than to reach the mind of the people for therein lurks the direction of their ambitions, their emotions, and the living.
* Charles Habib Malik, A Christian Critique of the University. Downer's Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1982.
June 01 A Christian Critique of the University[This excellent book by Charles Habib Malik is rich with insight into the contemporary university scene. It is a bit old, but it's critique is just as scathing and poignent today as it was 25 years ago. Below is an excerpt from his critique on the humanities, pg. 91-92].
"If you are taught day and night, either explicitly or by presupposition, that in the end of ends there is nothing except matter in motion; that we are essentially dust and to dust we shall return; that truth, even with a small "t," does not exist; that nothing is certain, nothing secure; that the last word is what Whitehead calls process, the welter, flux, passage; that philosophy is only a matter of linguistic analysis; that all metaphysics is nonsense; that the great issues of life and death, of being and becoming, of suffering and destiny, of knowledge and truth, which preoccupied Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Saint Thomas, Kant and Neitzsche, are so many linguistic obfuscations [complications] which can be readily demonstrated as nonsense by linguistic analysis; that essentially life has no meaning; that if life has any meaning it is to eat and drink and be merry, and to extend your power and control; that all values are relative to custom and culture; that there is no absolute beauty, no absolute justice, no absolute love, no absolute mercy; that morality is private or at best situational; that right is ultimately only what you can safely get away with; that man is essentially his
dreams and drives; taht the judgement that might is right is the deepest and most determinate insight in politics; that politics and economics alone determine the course of history; that freedom in art is to disfigure (Picasso); that God is man or matter or reason or the will or technology or nothing; an dnot that; but if you have also to pass examinations on all these themes, and, if you are writing a doctoral dissertation, to pore over the voluminou literature of such teaching for years; then, is it any wonder that, after eight or ten years (the most formative in your life) of such rigorous drilling in the university, you become thoroughly brainwashed into the rationalist-relitavistic-naturalist-Freudian-sophistical-monistic-immanentist-atheistic cast of mind? And parents wring their hands and complain about what is happening to their children; and thinkers keep on only "thinking"; and leaders wonder at the decadence all around them and perhaps also in them; and churches appear unconncerned, except to continue preaching the gospel, as though there was not also such a momentuous thing as the independent problem of the university with which they, too, and in the name of the gospel itself, should be concerned!"
* Charles Habib Malik, A Christian Critique of the University (Downer's Grove,IL: Intervarsity Press, 1982), 91-92. May 11 Postmodern Conversation[In reply to Daan]
There is so much to address with such deep conversation. I'm afraid I need to backtrack to your original comment to see if we can clear up some things in the course of our conversation, lest we spend our entire time talking past each other.
You wrote,
"What i don't understand is why the churches are still important to Americans. Why should someone go to a church when all religions are similar?"
Mankind, time after time, has attempted to denegrate religion as some humanly invented fiction serving as a crutch for the weak minded. It is then viewed as a set of ethical perameters to help keep people good, but if they could just be good anyway then they wouldn't need religion. Unfortunately, this view of religion is horribly naive and largely inaccurate. People are religious for a number of reasons. Some follow that humanistic scenario I just described. Some go to church to meet ladies. Some are religious because it might shorten their jail sentence. Some are religious because they prefer to have some divine Santa Claus who will give them stuff as long as they pray hard enough and have enough faith. But religion is too widespread and profound in its nature to be explained away in such humanistic and functionalistic terms. Some people are forced to faith by the power of their intellect--Lee Strobel, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, heck even Anthony Flew recently became a theist largely because of Intelligent Design theory (IE: the counterpart to evolution). Certain evidences of reality from our very psyche to the facts of morality to the existence of anything at all, all of these suggest that there is more to reality than nature. That is, there is a supernature and therefore belief in a God is reasonable. But most people will never realize how unavoidable God-belief is because they simply assume he does not exist or they prefer to believe otherwise. Religion at least has some reasonableness (is that word?) to it, and therefore "church" potentially has some legitimacy. American's value church for several reasons. Some value it for functionalistic reasons such as, it helps them instill good values in their children, or is a warm and inviting community for friends and family to form social connections, or it is a place to get involved in the community or take part in some fun activities, or it is a just a place for getting involved in social services such as food pantries, clothes drives, etc. But, still others are part of Christianity in particular because it is true, and truth by its nature deserves adherence. I do not say that dogmatically but reasonably. It is not true because we say it is true, it is true and therefore we acknowledge its truth. As Ravi Zacharias has often said, quoting G. K. Chesterton, "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting but that it has been found difficult and left untried." Those who really and fairly give trial to the assertions of Christianity find it to be quite compelling. Concerning you ackowledgement that all religions are similar, one has to keep only the most distant view of them to think they are much alike. IN terms of their ethical statements they have some similarities, and they are similar in their recognition of a supernatural reality. But besides that one might as well say, "All white people look alike." It's a foolish statement to say that one God, a tri-une God, an all-inclusive God, a bipolar God, and multiple gods are all equivalent. They are only equivalent if they are all false anyway. Why would I choose to eat a spoonful of sugar over a spoonful of arsenic? They are both the same amount, powerdery, white substances? Same difference right?
You also write,
"Strange that Dutch left-wing anarchists have similar ideals as American conservative christians. In the Netherlands, christianity is trying to maintain itself, which is very hard. The churches are nearly empty." Again, this line of thought assumes that religion is false or, at best, defined by its functionality. If religion is having a hard time surviving then just let it die, right? But if Christianity for example is true and it is having a hard time surviving, then so what? We should press on till our dying breath trying to help people see that there is an infinite reality of eternal consequence.
You also write,
"I think it is better for the world, which is geographically separated by different religions, to come to a new kind of ideology without the concept of god. That could bring people together and make an end to crusade versus jihad. How do you intend to convince non-believing Americans (atheism is rapidly increasing in the USA) to become christian, if muslims and hindus are violently opposed to become christians?" Again, you assume that religion, or comparable ideologies, are basically false in that it is just a human invention that can be remade and redefined for our own purposes. Concerning the "new kind of ideology without God" that is what has become of socialism, communism, secular humanism, naturalism, materialism, and even evolutionism. Of course not every manifestation of those systems is always and attempt to dethrone God, but these systems have become worldview stand-ins for many atheists. But none of those systems suffice because they are ultimately bankrupt morally. What I mean is not that every one who denies God's existence is grossly immoral, but rather that there is no foundation within those systems for being moral. If there is no God serving as the standard of right and wrong, what makes life better than death? What makes rape worse than love? Morality simple reduces to legality and no one can say that anything is ultimately "evil" but just "not to their liking." People have attempted cultural definitions of morality or individualistic definitions of morality but these bring contradictions and show necessary limitations in areas where we most need ethics. The nuremberg trials would have been unjustified if morality is culturally defined. And there would never be such a thing as a "just" war or an "unjust" war, there would only be war without comment. As for converting people to Christianity, I think the power of a truly Christian life is good evidence for the truth of Christianity. It may not provide all the argumentation and rational defense of the truth of Christianity, but it provides an apologetic that helps validate in the eyes of postmoderns the more rational defenses. If you don't know any Christians they may look, in your own eyes, like Crusaders or Bible-beaters or irrelevant nerds. But if you know some christians whose lives are wholistic, satisfying, hopeful, purposeful, strong and loving then Christianity itself can become more interesting to the onlooker. Many people come to faith for these reasons alone, and unfortunately are not concerned for "truth." The functionality of Christianity is a test for falsehood--namely, if it fails in what it asserts it is not true--but it is not a test for truth since many lies also work well too. But, if people come to truth by deceptive means, well, at least they arrived at truth and maybe they can burn the bridge that got them there.
You also write,
"The strange thing about conservative christians in the USA is that they use postmodern arguments to fight modernism, so the only truth that remains is god. I don't think that people will buy it. Why should god be true and is science and progress incorrect? Postmodernism doesn't only annihilate modernism, but also religion. I don't understand why the word god should have such a meaning that the truth must adjust to it."
Again you are assuming that God is not true and therefore we religionists want people to adjust truth to God belief. I don't think we should adjust truth to God belief. That is foolishness and defies the nature of truth. I think that if there is a God we should believe God as true. You'll have to explain to me what you mean by "postmodern arguments" used to defend modernism. You must also go further too in identifying what postmodernism purports to annihilate. It not only claims to annihilate religion and modernism but it annihilates itself. The postmodernists such as Foucalt and Derrida admit that their system denies them the ability to write books which have objective meaning. Using their system, I could read their books and choose to read into them a modernist meaning since there is no objective meaning. But to read the meanings put there by their authors presuposes an objective theory of language and therefore you have to be a "modernist" to read their book rejecting modernism. Also you have assumed the same common dichotomy between religion and scienence that many people do. Contemporaries have little sense of history to reckognize that science began under the tutalage of the Church. Most all the early scientists of the modern scientific revolution were Christian. For them, science was an attempt to worship God by studying His affects--creation. That same stream of thought has survived to this day with a minority of scholars today doing science as a religious activity. Not only are science and faith reconcilable, they are designed to fit each other. The Bible encourages people to seek knowledge and affirms strong minds and investigating the world. The wisdom books for example hammer this in (Proverbs in particular). What's odd is how science is often held to with a greater dogmatism than are the tenets of faith. If science is an attempt to explain things in terms of natural causes, then its rightful domain is to leave all claims (positive or negative) about supernature to the philosophers and theologians. But rarely do scientists stay in their domain of science. He who is skilled with a hammer sees every problem as a nail. The scientists too often have played the philosopher, and badly, by arguing that their explanations of things in terms of natural causes have left no room for religion. When it comes to questions that have no natural explanation, or that have more than natural causes behind them, the modern scientist will punt to faith--"We WILL have an answer for that in the future," or to acognosticism, "that just can't be known." For example "how come there is something rather than nothing at all?," and "how did the universe come to be?" Or, science will propose an answer that is less comprehensive, less satisfying, and less tenable than that of religion such as "ethics are just genetically determined social dispositions." If it were only that easy, eh? But science and religion are not enemies unless they pretend to do each other's job.
I hope I answered some of your questions. Am I being clear? I want to get to the bottom of things and find out where we first diverge in our thoughts and it seems like we disagree at the very beginning--viewing truth differently, along with the "truth" of religion.
Sincerely,
John May 09 Darwin a Theist?Do you know that Charles Darwin at the time he wrote Origin of the Species evidenced theism?Check it out . . .
"There is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms so beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
* Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races In the Struggle for Life (Reprint from the 6th London ed. with additions and corrections. New York: Nurst and Company, n.d.) last page of the conclusion, emphasis mine. May 07 The Value of an Intellectual Calling, pt. 1As an intellectual I have come to see my own perspective on the world shift according to the knowledge I gain and the understanding I develop. As the blind man saw what looked like moving trees and eventually by the hand of Christ his vision captured the image of real people, so by Christ's work in my mind I have come to see some things more clearly than before. One aspect of my growing perspective is that I am coming to value intellectualism more deeply than ever before. Moreover, I find myself wondering how it is that others do not share that same conviction about the importance of intellectual pursuits.
I suppose I must qualify my language before I get too far. I recognize that everyone has their respective "hobby horses" on which they ride with ferver and conviction. And let us assume that all these hobby horses are legitimate such as animal rights, educational reform, right-to-live advocacy, free-speech, a particular religious truth, etc. But we have only one life to give, and that means we have to be selective over which hill we are to die on. Even if all of these agendas are important, we will receive them with different levels of interest according to our prior commitments and availability. We cannot be 100% empassioned about every noble cause. The nature of living in the free world is that we have choices to make and should not stand at the cross roads stultified by options. There at the crossroads we scratch our heads over where to go, and in the presence of choice find ourselves trapped. We are enslaved for always wanting choice but never choosing. So, as I present to you my thoughts on the value of an intellectual calling I recognize that this hobby horse of mine will not be ridden the same by anyone else. Few people will pursue a uniquely academic calling as part of the Christian commission. But I do not speak of professors or seminarians only. I speak of the general calling to all Christians, and all humanity for that matter, which is programmed into our very nature as human beings. I speak not simply of a "hobby horse" but of the intellectual mode of the human soul that deserves attention in everyone less we shrivel a bit as humans. It is to the general intellectual calling that I want to direct our attention now.
Perhaps if we understand about the context for the intellect we can more greatly appreciate its value.
First, God is true and rational. Every statement God ever made in Scripture presupposes the first-principles of logic, IE: the law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, and the law of excluded middle. We can certainly go on for years seeking to address the issue of whether God is true, but that apologetic road is not my purpose here. Let us assume with John 14:6 that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life." God may have more content with which to reason, and he may reason immediately and perfectly (while we humans reason mediately and imperfectly), but He is rational nonetheless. His "reason" may be direct and timeless but his rationality is still very real. Second, God is the source of our minds for we have minds yet no thing can exist in creation that does not have its source in the creator. Our minds are infinitely different from God's, but ours and His still run parallel to each other despite that infinite gap in between.
Third, provided this context, namely that God is the model intellect and the source of our intellect, we can deduce that the intellect, within its proper bounds, is a good thing. It is even a spiritually beautiful thing since it has potential as a religious instrument.
Fourth, the right exercise of the mind--in this case, intellectualism--can and should be worship (Mark 12:30). The oft cited divide between heart and mind is not a Biblical division and is foreign to the right exercise of either. A strong mind rightly aimed provides a Godly direction for the heart. And a strong heart rightly aimed provides a Godly motivation for the mind. And both together are a more splendid wholistic sort of worship than could be mustered in the fragmented person who has neglected either or both.
Fifth, in terms of practical issues, life affords enough challenges to make a strong mind necessary for survival.
Sixth, again, pragmatically speaking, life affords enough enlightened opportunities to make a strong mind preferrable since many of life's higher pleasures are only accessible by fit minds.
Seventh, we are more deeply human when we dignify this oft neglected aspect of our nature along with the other parts of our nature (mind, will, emotion, and body). A weak or vagrant mind is an insult to the will, emotion, and body since our humanity craves integrated wholism. We are not a duality, triplicate, or quadrality--we are a soul body unity. When one part suffers the whole suffers. When one part is strong the whole is benefitted.
To Be Continued. . . . May 02 Is the Sabbath still binding?[This email was sent in response to a question on whether the Sabbath is still binding. The response originally provided was that the Sabbath is no longer binding because Christ abolished the law. I responded however by saying that the Sabbath is still binding though not via the Mosaic law. What follows is an elaborated defense of my view.]
Dear _____, Aha! A lively debate! Bravo. When I say "Sabbath-keeping" I am not referring to a legalistic reservation of saturdays or sundays as a day in which no work is to be done whatsoever, we must corporately worship, and whatnot. I am however referring to the larger idea of the Sabbath set in motion from the very days of creation. The Sabbath, as a principle and not as a pharisaic law, is a vital part of the natural law that reminds us God is sovereign, we are not, rest is good, the enjoyment of God's bounty is good, and the ultimate Sabbath rest is still coming in the form of heaven (Heb. 4). The Sabbath law, as expressed in the fourth commandment of the Mosaic law, is based not in the covenant on Sinai but in the days of creation. That is, the Sabbath principle is rooted in creation, not the mosaic covenant.
I italicize the word "for" because it shows the cause for this law of the Sabbath. The reason why the Sabbath is sacred is that God ordained it by order of His method of creating. And creation came long before the mosaic law was ever inacted. At principle here is the natural law in distinction from the mosaic law. The mosaic law and the natural law agree on many points. But the natural law is more basic than the mosaic law and therefore it persists even where the mosaic law has become obsolete. The mosaic law also echoed a ban on homosexuality and on murder, but these are not just issues of mosaic law. The sanctity of the Sabbath was built into nature by God's model established in the days of creation (Gen. 2:1-3), just like the sanctity of life was built into the sanctity of man (Gen. 1:26-27) and the sanctity of marriage was built into God's instituting of marriage (Gen. 2:24-25; cf. Gen. 19). Though the mosaic law has been revoked, none of the natural law has been revoked. The natural law serves a different purpose than the mosaic law ever did. The natural law exposes what is right and wrong by order of nature--and doesn't necessarily speak to issues of atonement, salvation, or sacrifice. The mosaic law however agrees with the natural law at points and adds other items which would not otherwise be laws but were important nonetheless because they expressed that God's people are to be "set apart" in their worship practices, family order, social order, hygeine, and diet. The mosaic law was made obsolete by Christ since we are now set apart by our relation to Christ and not by whether we cut our hair, have tatoos, eat meat and dairy together, or wear clothes of mixed thread. The mosaic law also provided a penal code so that voluntary sins could be covered by giving "eye for eye and tooth for tooth." The sacrificial system only answered involuntary sins. Voluntary sins were answered by paying your debts according to the law. The natural law was never so sophisticated. The natural law just pointed out what is right and wrong by order of nature. The natural law issues in consequences naturally and tends to be culturally universal since it is "written on our hearts" (Rom. 2:15). In the verses you cite, Rom. 10:4; Gal. 3:23-25; Eph. 2:15--each of these refer to the preliminary and incomplete role of the Mosaic law. The mosaic law is usually Paul's default definition when he says "law," but he also calls it the "law of moses" and the "law of commandments." This mosaic law was fulfilled in Christ and therein made obsolete. It was not so much destroyed as it was completed to the point of being obsolete. When Christ fulfilled the law (Matt. 5:17) He provided atonement not just for our involuntary sins (addressed by sacrificial offerings) but also our voluntary sins (addressed by the penalties in the mosaic law). We do not need to be circumcised to be part of the God's people. But we still are not allowed to commit murder, commit homosexual acts, nor has the holiness of the Sabbath been dissolved. Also, in Christ's practices we see a dignification and clarification of the Sabbath which opposes pharisaic legalism while maintaining the heart of the law (Matt. 12:1-14; Luke 13:10-17; 14:1-6; John 5:9-17; 7:21-24; 9:16). If "not working" hinders good actions--such as healing a person or rescuing a trapped sheep--then the letter of the law should be set aside in deference to the heart of the law. Heal the sick, feed the poor, and rescue little Lambchop from the briars and thickets--even if it is the Sabbath. But Jesus never said the Sabbath has been abolished. Furthermore, the persistence of these natural laws is evident in contemporary and historical social practice. Homosexuality, murder, and even the Sabbath are all recognized in principle in our governmental system hence the denial of Gay marriage (historically true, even though this has been questioned occasionally in history is is now being questioned again), murder being illegal, and the established standard of workers rights and a 40 hr work week. Also the church for 2000 years has faithfully kept to Sunday worship as its primary time of congregating for worship. While "worship" is not explicitly outlined as part of the Sabbath principle, it is a weekly commemoration of the freedom installed by Christ upon His resurrection and has become the Sabbath of the Christian church (as opposed to the Jewish sabbath which is on Saturday). It also bears mentioning that while the Sabbath was originally a day of Creation it was also instituted as a Jewish Holiday (read Holy-day) no less important than the feast of booths or the feast of weeks in that it is a powerful symbol of things yet to come (Lev. 23). And lastly since the Sabbath was also instituted as a law in the ten commandments all our campaigns to keep the ten commandments in the courtroom are a tacit admission that the Sabbath is still somehow binding on society. I would not make such a stink about this issue if we Americans did a good just with our leisure. But we do not. We rarely worship through our leisure. We tend towards wasting time or abusing time, never using time as a gift to offer to God whether in labor or leisure. We either become overbusy frazzled workaholics or we become lazy people wasteful with the time God has given us. All the while we forgot to work in this life towards the ultimate day of rest in heaven with God. And we forget to have a healthy enjoyment of the fruits of our labors, themselves gifts of God reminding us of his goodness and love. Did that explanation make sense? I hope it was understandable. And I know I did not clarify exactly how I would suggest going about observing the Sabbath. But that should give you an idea of where I'm coming from and why I think it is too simplistic to merge the natural law with the mosaic law and essentially say (inadvertantly) that all law is abolished. The argument one would have to make to counter mine would be that the Sabbath is not in fact written into the natural law, but I think I have made my case by order of 1) the days of creation, 2) the reference to creation within the 4th commandment, 3) the silence of Jesus and Paul on abolishing the Sabbath in particular, 4) the concept of the Sabbath rest as it is unpacked in Hebrews four, 5) the implied adherence suggested in our contemporary respect for the ten commandments (no one is here saying that the ten commandments have ceased to be binding), and 6) and culturally universal nature of the Sabbath principle (even if in secular society the sacred purpose of the day of rest has been missed).
In Christ April 16 On the Contemporary Vs. Traditional Debate"I want hymns!" "But I want praise and worship music!" "You are culturally irrelevant." "But you are just pandering to the masses." Traditionalism! Contemporary services!
The battle wages still, perhaps as heated as it has ever been. But let us not be mistaken into thinking this is a new debate. Over the growth of the church in the course of its history there has always been a tension over how much change is positive growth and how much is negative deviation. To what extent should we venture forth into culture or into "new" forms of ministry, and to what extent do we refrain and protect certain forms which may be integrally tied to their message? Certainly much can be said for traditional dispositions as well as for contemporary dispositions. And the more I personally contemplate this issue the more I can see it developing into a book all by itself. But rather than bite off more than I can chew let me just propose here a few points to ponder and leave the debating up to debaters.
1) First and foremost this issue is tangiential. Is it important? Of course. Is it central? Rarely. So let us not forget Paul's refreshingly candid admission, "Others preach Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? Whether in false motives or true Christ is preached and because of this I rejoice" (Phil. 1:17-18). God can still use mixed motives and poor methods. While we should not simply excuse mixed motives and problematic methods, we have at hand the larger task of making disciples which many times subsumes those relatively minor debates. These issues should be addressed but we must be careful not to misappropriate our energies at hair-splitting (that is, when this debate does reduce to hair-splitting).
2) Tradition is good. And cultural relevance is good. Most of the arguments which lean one way tend to forget the value that the other has. Some traditions are integrally woven into Christianity and cannot be rightfully forsaken such as Baptism, Communion, and "preaching" of the gospel (salvation by grace through faith in Jesus as God).* Other traditions often save time and energy while allowing congregations and individuals to tap into the "wisdom of the ages." Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel every time we "do church" we can draw from the rich resources of church history and built on their foundations. However the method is often incidentally related to the message and should be allowed as much flexibility as the good parts of that culture afford. Of course we should not have a mens prayer breakfast at a strip-club just because there are a lot of unsaved people there who could benefit from that ministry of presence. But in so far as culture is neutral or good, we can be flexible in our approach so as to affirm those elements while potentially creating inroads through commonalities.
3) On a related note, people need culturally relevant Gospel invasions as well as traditional rootedness. Not only are contemporary and traditional dispositions possessing of good features, but considered together they can hold indispensable parts of healthy Christianity. We have need for the anchor of Godly traditions and the adventure of new applications of Gospel truth. As one friend put it, the dilemma is between "roots and wings." Christian maturity demands both.
4) Furthermore, it is rare to find a fully traditional or fully contemporary church. What ends up happening is they find certain convenient labels by which to identify their opponent, reject those features, and then when they define themselves end up accepting some of the same ideas espoused by their opponent. They are divided on the surface but have more in common than they realize. Contemporary services often become a new set of traditions. And traditional services find venues for new applications of the gospel.
5) The Gospel has flexible integrity. It is flexible enough to meet anyone anywhere at any level of depth and as comprehensively as one desires. But despite its seemingly endless flexibility, it maintains an integrity so that it is still the Gospel that is being stretched across the cultural and continental divides. A person can be right at the doorstep of the temple and still be eternally separated from the Gospel for they have sought a compromise in the message of the gospel (IE: the pharisee). Or a person can be on the other side of the world needing miraculous intervention if he or she is to hear the gospel at all and yet be right in the hands of God because he or she is calling on the flexibility of method of the Gospel. In other words, the method is not sacred whereas the message is. Insofar as the method is inseparable from the message it should not be altered. But it is the message that makes sacred, not the other way around.
6) If culture directs us too strongly we lose the salt and light of the Gospel for the sake of being accepted. If tradition directs too strongly we end up making the Gospel more difficult than it already is. This latter issue is the error of colonialism. That is, we transport an artificial culture along with the authentic gospel thus making the Gospel even harder to swallow then it already is and people need to convert to English, or southern Gospel, or the King James Bible, or Christianeze just so he or she can convert to the true Gospel. The gospel is hard enough, let us not make it harder. And the gospel is flexible enough, let us not stretch it beyond what the message allows.
7) The deeper issue is that of worshipping a false God--a cold and distant god of traditionalism or a compromised god of liberalism. Have the methods of ministry swallowed the message? Be it traditional methods or contemporary methods, we tend to mistake the appearances of ministry for the ministry itself. We forget that on the one hand Jesus never wore a three-piece suit, spoke King James English, or sang "Just as I am" or ate tiny little oyster crackers for sacrament. And on the other hand, Jesus held to many of the traditions of his day, not coming to "abolish the law but to fulfill it," challenging traditionalism but maintaining tradition. Jesus was radical but because right traditions faithfully and sincerely practiced is revolutionary. He touched lepers and healed on the sabbath and ate with unwashed hands (or at least his disciples ate that way). Yet he payed the temple tax, did not work on the Sabbath, and He honored His parents.
I hope that this blog channels some of the light from this heated debate. Please let me know what you guys think. Do you go to traditional or contemporary (or other) churches? What are your thought or opinions on the subject?
* Preaching, as used here, is a lot bigger term than just pulpit exhortations. Preaching is the proclamation of the Gospel be it through teaching or sermonizing, audio, visual, textual, personal or whatever. The are millions of ways the Gospel can be communicated cognitively. April 13 Help a brother outHey all you apologetics lovers out there. I'm doing some shameless promotion but it's for a good cause so I don't mind. If you need a speaker at an upcoming conference, seminar, lecture, debate, class, or other event please let me know. I specialize in apologetics but also have extensive preaching and teaching experience in other areas such as restoring Biblical sexuality, preparing for college, discerning God's will, and Biblical exegesis. Below is a link to the list of Speakers available through my school. Of course I would love to be able to come out and serve you personally, but there are other speakers available here too who may be more specialized in your particular areas of interest.
You can book through that website (Matt Graham is the site host) or you can book directly with me through this site. April 06 The Discipline of the MindLearning is hard. Study is cumbersome. And the task of becoming a Christian Intellectual is more like a life-long mountain climb than an afternoon stroll in the park. It is important to recognize beforehand that intelligent faith is a tough thing to come by. Otherwise, when we do set out to read that book, or attend that seminar, or sign up for that class we will be kicked in the head by the hard reality that the greater things in life lie on the far side of much discipline. To know the deepest joys of secure and holy love there is need for long lengths of sexual purity and spiritual discipline. To know the joy of great accomplishment on game-day there is need for much practice in the training field. And to be a Christian intellectual one has to spend great lengths of time disciplining the mind. There is no known way to instantaly download books into one's brain, or to instantly become smart, or to instantly acquire wisdom, or to instantly understand the great philosophies and theologies of the world. "Instant" does not describe the disciplines of the mind. For those of us who want "instant" results, intellectual pursuits prove sorely disappointing.
Sadly, our microwave and drive-through culture has not only micro-sized our attention span and dissolved our patience, it has also served to shallow the roots of our convictions so that "fun" trumps "good" almost every time. In other words we are pleasure seekers. That is, we are hedonists in the negative slant, epicureans in the positive slant, but fun-hungry egotists from any slant. Pleasure is not the problem per se, but rather our settling for "instant" pleasures over long term joy. It is not even the recognition of self that is the problem but rather the deification and preoccupation with self that proves sickening and corrosive. Beneath this overpowering pleasure drive lies a fundamentally me-centered theology. I call it a theology rather than a philosophy because our radical attention towards the self is so consuming it borders on worship. Worship is a category of theology not philosophy. That western culture is largely self-centered hardly requires defense. We are self-centered in a God centered universe. With our admitted beliefs we may recognize God as God. But in our true beliefs, that is, what lies behind our lives and actions, we are central. We are our own gods and the true God is peripheral. God is an object for casual observation as time affords, and deliberate and concentrated attention when we are in crisis. He fits well into our sunday mornings, but becomes unsightly when he slips into the rest of the week. Being "God-centered" is for priest and monks. The rest of us prefer our morning comics, a little gossip, a nice dinner, good weather, a little love and all the simple pleasures that life affords. Our lavish lives are dinner parties with God leashed in the back yard. Life is about "me" not "God." God is to be about me and I am to be about me, right?
A me-centered theology together with an all-consuming pursuit of fun and the overriding cultural antagonism towards Christian intellectualism combine to make a three stranded noose around the neck of contemporary evangelicalism. Permitting we stretch the analogy further, the body of contemporary evangelicalism is under many mortal dangers--the suicide of hypocrisy, the blindness of cultural irrelevance, the lameness of missiological emperialism, and the cancer of lovelessness. But the noose of anti-intellectualism threatens to cut off oxygen to the brain thus instilling a deepened existentialism unguided by right wisdom or a compelling intelligent faith. Our hearts are ready to burst, but we are immobilized by ignorance. We have feeling, and will, but not enough thought to direct those towards the Truth of God. We have strength to venture out and serve but our nervous system is failing.
Folks, the life of the mind is of critical importance. The church cannot be Biblical and God honoring as long as it neglects the call to worship God with its mind. Discipleship and evangelism are crippled when the disciplines of the mind are shunned. Our Christian witness is muted when our faith is foolish. The Gospel is absurd enough, we don't need to make it harder to swallow adding our own intellectual laziness to it.
For those of you out there (all 3 of you) who seek to become Christian Intellectuals, I say, press on. The task is hard. The road is long. The rations are scarce at times. And the opposition is strong. But what did you expect? This is not the popular road of contemporary evangelicalism. This is not merely a call to preach harder, but to preacher wiser. This is not simply about gaining more mental content, but shaping your very mind to understand better and think more keenly. This is not commercialized Christianity for those window shopping the fun topics of Christian apologetics--"Oo, Creationism looks fun. Lets read a few pages of a that book till it gets boring." This is not a shopping stroll or a walk in the park. This is a life long climb. It is fun, but not always. It is hard, but rewarding. It is meaningful. And there is joy to sustain us as we press on along this lonely overcast path. Many non-Christian philosophies have blanketed contemporary scholarship like a barrage of friendly fire and thinned out the ranks of secular scholarship. Much of contemporary scholarship is not even scholarship since it denies the existence of truth and knowledge of the real world (ala: relativism and perspectivalism). Opining is fine but is not philosophy. This Mars Hill of modern Scholarship is relatively unguarded in light of the death of metaphysics and the carnage of deconstructionism, historicism, and secularism. This hill is ready to be retaken by the Truth, perhaps more ready than at any other time since the church first forsook the university. But we do not do this because it is fun or because we are just looking for something to do. We are charging this hill because we must. We are climbing this mountain because God's glory is being forsaken in his most rightful home--the halls of learning, the bastion of truth-seeking. We set at this task because it is important. Fun will follow on the heels of right conviction. But if we aim at merely having fun we will be casualties on the battlefield. We will have been playing children's games on the sidelines of war. |
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